Movie Studios in Bidding War to Bring Monsterpocalypse Board Game to the Big Screen

The Monsterpocalypse tabletop game is at the center of a fierce bidding war between a number of movie studios, all of whom have grand designs on bringing the title to the big screen.

With gameplay that essentially sees giant monsters facing off against giant robots, you could be forgiven for thinking that this is just a rip-off of Guillermo Del Toro's Pacific Rim. But, while the two ideas are incredibly similar, Monsterpocalypse has actually been around for longer than Del Toro's 2013 rock 'em sock 'em blockbuster.

The similarities between the two properties were not lost on Hollywood execs who, after learning of Del Toro's Pacific Rim project, actually canceled their initial plans to adapt the Monsterpocalypse game. The initial 2010 plans for the adaptation had Tim Burton directing with a script from John August (Big Fish, Charlie and the Chocolate Factor), but that got put on ice when it was deemed the adaptation would be too similar to Del Toro's plans for Pacific Rim.

Despite the prospect of a Pacific Rim sequel hitting theaters in the coming years, new plans are afoot to bring a drastically different adaptation of the Monsterpocalypse title to the big screen. It's being reported that four major studios, including Warner Bros., Sony, and Dreamworks are battling to secure the rights to the adaptation, which comes with Fede Alvarez (Evil Dead) attached to direct.

While this new iteration of the Monsterpocalypse is reported to be vastly different from Del Toro's Pacific Rim, it remains to be seen if there Hollywood is a town big enough for so many monster entities. On top of Del Toro's Pacific Rim sequel, which is to say the least an on-off project, there's also the prospect of the new Legendary/Warner Bros. Monster-verse. Following the 2014 Godzilla movie, the two studios are combining to bring three monster movies to theaters between now and 2020. Next year we'll see Kong: Skull Island before Godzilla 2 in 2018 and a merging of worlds which will see a 2020 mash-up movie, Godzilla v King Kong.